Slice the $270m JPMorgan just agreed to pay for Bear Stearns any way you want to and still it’s a horrible end for a storied brokerage firm. To end up paying $0.25 on the dollar for the company’s $1 in headquarters real estate, in effect, and to do it in equity, no less, is an embarrassment beyond embarrassment for people collectively incapable, at least until now, of being embarrassed.

Tragic, tragic stuff, and, we can only hope, a bottom, even if one we bounce along for some time, to one of the worst periods in modern financial markets. But trust me, there is nothing in it for anything to be proud of, other than removing much of the Bear-specific counterparty risk that would have taken everyone in the financial market out in a major way during trading tomorrow.